2012 Presidential Games: The Dream Team vs The Drain Team
- Thread starter TeddyBallgame
- Start date
A Big Ideas Campaign, With Few Specifics On a Key Issue
A Big Ideas Campaign, With Few Specifics On a Key Issue | Swampland | TIME.com
Since picking Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has pledged repeatedly to wage a campaign of ideas. But the specifics have so far been hard to come by.
Romney cast his decision to tap the architect of Republican budget policy as a gesture of his commitment to elevate his campaign and zero in on the starkly different governing philosophies between the two parties. As he crisscrosses the country on a four-day bus tour of five battleground states, however, Romney has yet to stake out a clear position on his newly minted running mate’s signature proposal to overhaul federal health programs. During a press conference on the muggy tarmac of Miami International Airport Monday afternoon, Romney dodged a series of questions about how his vision for Medicare dovetails with Ryan’s controversial blueprint.
(PHOTOS: Paul Ryan’s Life and Career)
Asked whether he could identify specific differences between his Medicare plan and Ryan’s, Romney responded, “There may be. We’ll take a look at the differences.” Pressed further, Romney ducked again, saying merely that the two were on “the same page,” with points of agreement that “outweigh any differences there may be.”
“We haven’t gone through piece by piece and said, ‘Oh, here’s a place where there’s a difference,’” the former Massachusetts governor told reporters. “I can’t imagine any two people, even in the same party, who have exactly the same positions on all issues.”
Romney’s hazy explanation comes as Democrats launch an effort to define Ryan, 42, as a right-wing ideologue who would eviscerate the social safety net to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. The corollary to this onslaught is a bid to tether Romney to Ryan’s budget, which would slash programs like Pell Grants and food stamps, turn Medicaid into a block-grant program administered entirely by the states and convert Medicare to a system in which the government provides subsidies for beneficiaries to buy private insurance. (Under Ryan’s plan, people over 65 in 2022 could keep the current system; the overhaul would generate savings because the subsidies wouldn’t keep pace with escalating health care costs.)
Hate, such as telling Romney he should show Americans more than one year's worth of tax returns.
It's not "experience as President" that counts so much as experience at managing people, experience at listening to people, experience at "growing" money, experience at delegating properly, experience at making solid decisions after some contemplation, experience at knowing where to obtain knowledge, etc. etc.